1. Field of the Invention
Apparatuses and methods consistent with the present invention relate to managing a storage space through time-variant consumption estimation. In particular, the present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for managing a storage space through time-variant consumption estimation that estimates consumption of an entire storage space when a user instructs program editing, program recording or reserved recording, and so on and, when there is a possibility that estimated consumption exceeds a predetermined value, immediately provides a user with information indicating that the storage space is lacking.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, media devices, such as PVR, Home AV center and PMP, having a mass storage device, that can store and play various contents, such as music, photographs, and motion pictures, have appeared.
Accordingly, recording, reserved recording, editing, and deletion utilizing EPG or the like are frequently performed, and the lack of storage space may occur in the media devices at any time. Accordingly, in order to solve this problem, a method of managing a storage space that can effectively cope with the lack of storage space has been in demand.
A conventional storage space management apparatus includes a user interface that receives an instruction from a user and provides the user with information, a recording processing unit that processes a recording instruction of the user, a recording reservation unit that receives and stores a reserved recording instruction of the user and requests to perform reserved recording at a prescribed time, an editing processing unit that receives an editing instruction from the user and processes the editing instruction, and receives a deletion time and a deletion instruction of stored contents from the user and transmits them to a contents management unit, the contents management unit that takes charge of storage and deletion of the contents, and a contents storage space in which the contents is actually stored.
That is, in a conventional space management method, if consumption of the storage space exceeds a predetermined value during recording of the contents, contents is to be deleted from the previously stored contents or contents is automatically deleted utilizing various kinds of meta data. Here, when the consumption of storage space exceeds the predetermined value during recording, as a method of deleting specified contents previously stored or determining contents to be deleted, there is a method that sets priorities using the meta data, such as a generation date, a latest access date, the number of play times, preservability, and preference, and sequentially deletes the previously stored contents from contents having a low priority until a required storage space is ensured.
In conventional techniques, when there is a lack of storage space, contents to be deleted are first determined.
However, in the case of manual setting, for example, when the user directly deletes the previously recorded contents, if the user does not react at the time when there is a lack of storage space, recording may be performed incorrectly.
Further, in the case of automatic setting, in which the previously recorded contents are automatically deleted according to user setting, it is difficult for a user to set deletion methods for all possible cases in advance. Accordingly, deletion is performed on the basis of a general setting, and thus it is difficult to accurately realize user preferences when the deletion is required.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-257950 discloses a technique that deletes a portion of previously recorded programs when the sum of the size of the previously recorded programs, the size of reserved programs to be recorded, and the size of new programs to be recorded exceeds a total recordable size. However, according to this technique, only information of the size of the storage space used for recording at the present time and the size of a storage space to be used for new recording is provided. Accordingly, estimation information of time-variant consumption of the storage space at an arbitrary time cannot be obtained.